Anne Forbes

Anne Forbes, age 99 of Groton, Ma passed away on Thursday, September 6, 2018. Anne went to Shady Hill grade school followed by the Windsor School. She pursued higher education at Bennington College in Vermont where she got her Bachelor of Arts in 1941. As part of the war effort, organized by the War Manpower Commission, Anne went to a secretarial school for a couple of months followed by working in Washington DC as a secretary for several years. Shortly after the war, she became director of Fellowship House in Kansas City, an organization committed to religious and ethnic tolerance. She continued her education at Radcliff where she earned a Masters Degree in Social Anthropology in 1948. One of her teachers, Clyde Cluckhohn, recommended she do field work to qualify for a PHD program in case she wanted to pursue it and so Anne went to New Mexico where she did research in American Indian art. She developed a lifelong interest in the people she met as well as in the art and became close friends to a number of artists during this period including Joe Herrera. It was also during this time, that she started a collection of paintings by American Indians which she donated to the Smithsonian Collection of American Art around 2005.

After her work and research in New Mexico, she returned home to Cambridge Ma., where she worked for the International Students Center from 1953-1957.

In 1958 from a suggestion of her mother, 'Peg', she became interested in The Self Realization Fellowship, a religious organization rooted in the spiritual teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda. This became a lifelong commitment to following his teachings as well as to giving service and assistance to the Self Realization Fellowship organization. In 1970, Anne opened a retreat near Bennington Vermont where SRF members as well as those interested in the teachings of Yogananda could come to meditate and learn. She maintained and ran this retreat for the benefit of local and visiting SRF members.

Anne retired from the retreat in 2005 and came to live with her nephew and family in Groton Ma., where she has been up until the present.

She is succeeded by four nieces and a nephew, by their respective offspring and is embraced by her spiritual family at the Self Realization Fellowship.

Services will be private

Arrangements under the care of Badger Funeral Home, A Life Celebration Home, Groton, Massachusetts